Double Happiness

Double Happiness focuses on an urban development near the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen, where “the Chinese” have rebuilt to scale the Austrian heritage site and lakeside tourist attraction, Hallstatt.
With sensitivity, humanity and warmth, Raidel explores the ensuing fall-out. We see the initial anger of the Hallstatt residents: Monika Wenger, hotelier declares – “If this is possible to copy a whole village, without the knowledge of any resident or any public institution. What next?”
The town’s replication is but a starting point to explore China’s fast urbanization. Double Happiness makes intelligent observations and engages interviewees in the fields of urban planning and architecture, including MAD Architect Ma Yansong, who suggests: “Copying is easy, creating something is difficult. I don‘t think a small town copying the beautiful scenery from Austria is a problem… But what about a huge city, copying another civilisation? I want people to ask, what the real China should be. That is also what Chinese people should ask.”
The result is a panorama of a country at a delicate point in time in its political, social and economic development, considering the relationship between tradition, the modern age and the future; between the reality and late-capitalist dreams; and between essential progress and environmental protection.